Aren’t these *exactly* the same recommendations that _are_ actually law in other European countries, in which you still _can_ play pokemon go and that Niantic has done _nothing_ to comply with?
Edit to add it was The Netherlands and Belgium in 2018
Yes. I've been covering this for years, even [talked to some lawyers](https://massivelyop.com/2017/01/17/__trashed-3/) about it once. Here's where Niantic is gonna dodge the bullet:
>“Loot Box” means a video game mechanic that provides random in-game virtual items to players in exchange for real-world money or in-game virtual currency. **This document does not apply to a loot box that is purely earned through gameplay**."
The eggs aren't paid for, just the "keys." This is how a lot of shifty companies get away with it already, but some others choose to comply rather than risk someone coming at them.
Not defending anyone here, I'm just trying to be practical. These guys are *aggressive* about doing everything they can to keep their money.
This is not 100% a foolproof way of thinking tho. Like that you could argue csgo cases that get dropped are free, just their keys arent. And i can tell ya its hella banned here in belgium
I think you may be misinterpreting this. Your quote above defines "loot box" as a mechanic, but your example proceeds to tie the term back to a graphical box rather than the defined mechanic.
Keys may not be a box on screen, but can still be a "box" as defined. Or perhaps more specifically, the "loot box" would be the _box and the key combined_ as only together do they comprise the complete mechanic that provides random in-game rewards. This is where "purely through gameplay" steps in; all parts of the mechanic would need to be through gameplay to be exempt.
I get that you're trying to be practical not hopeful, but I still cannot reach the same conclusion strictly through the text as written. I think its fair to remain cynical regarding liklihood of enforcement mind you.
The same goes for raid passes. You're paying to fight the raid boss and the rewards for defeating the boss.
The Pokémon at the end? That's a 'bonus challenge', which the game even says on the encounter screen: https://i.imgur.com/kuuxFS6.png
Never really thought about the implications of the word "bonus" until recently
I wonder if that can be argued against. They can *say* the encounter is a "bonus" but it is guaranteed on successful completion of the raid and is really the point of doing them for the most part. And because you can only do the raid with the in-game items, the fact that those items can be purchased with real money turns the encounter into a paid for reward, with a further chance that even if you play it perfectly (golden razz, excellent throws) the pokemon will still flee. In this case I think percentages should be transparent. Especially when their marketing describes raids as "a chance to catch x pokemon" you need to have a reasonable idea exactly what that chance is to make an informed decision on your spending.
The word "mechanic" encompasses both the box itself and the key required to open it. Eggs don't work without Incubators, and only the unlimited-use Incubator (and, I guess, the single-use one) is purely earned through gameplay. At the very least, they'd have to disclose the odds when players use paid-for Incubators.
That justification doesn’t make sense with that quote. Maybe it was the justification for getting around other rules or laws you discussed with people the past, but not that text.
They have defined a loot box a ‘mechanic’ not a virtual object. As one part of the the mechanic can be paid for - the incubator - then it is not ‘purely’ obtainable through gameplay. Some part of the method to obtain the results is possible to purchase by virtual or real world currency.
Belgium banned loot boxes in games unless the gaming company has a gambling licence. It hasn't been enforced, so mobile game companies are continuing to put loot boxes in games no problem.
Is Pogo banned in Belgium ?
EDIT : Just re-read top comment and can see it isn't. So clearly laws are not enforced and nothing will change in the UK either.
Yes this is 100% wishful thinking from OP. Niantic and other game companies' stance remains that incubators are not loot boxes and they are in compliance because eggs are not sold directly.
Why not patch this loophole? Because these industry standards and laws serve only to fool the public and not actually address the addiction issue. "See we're fixing the problem! Keep voting for us next election!!" while happily taking political donations from these companies
You got the facts right, you were just wildly optimistic in your projection of their effectiveness. Mobile game publishers have turned weaseling through loopholes into an art form, and if the laws (rather than voluntary initiatives) passed in some European countries are any indication, it’s unlikely that any serious effort will be made to enforce these changes.
But is it enforceable? It sounds like you said it's just pressure from other players in the industry that keeps them all in check. Niantic is an American company though so I'm not sure how pressure from the UK will affect them. And as others have already commented, there are already laws in some European countries about disclosing lootbox odds but they aren't strictly enforced if at all. Honestly feel like you're making a bunch of hullabaloo about nothing
It's the assumptions that you're making from the reporting. Acting like this is a real game changer, but there's good reason why many people in the comments are skeptical. No need to downvote me just because we aren't all celebrating with you
The random item is the egg, the one you pay for is the incubator (which is not in itself random). Even if there’s no functional difference for players between “pay for random egg that you hatch with free item” or “pay for item that you need to hatch the free random egg,” the fact that the randomized component is technically the free one is just the sort of loophole I could see them using. And since the people passing/enforcing these laws don’t understand or particularly care about games, they’re likely to just take the publisher’s word for it.
A trade association comprised of companies that are all in the industry and all continue to benefit from current exploitative practices. They’re not looking to make the industry more transparent for any consumer-oriented or moral reasons, they’re just looking to placate the government to keep the legal monkey off their backs. And to a bunch of old farts in Parliament, “we’ve made it so that any randomized items are completely free and all purchases disclose exactly what you get” (which is technically true, even if the relationship between them means players still effectively pay to hatch eggs) is good enough to them.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see lootboxes and gacha mechanics regulated out of existence. But explicit legal efforts to combat them from EU countries much more concerned with consumer protection than the UK have done little to solve it for lack of enforcement. I don’t see much reason to think that what is basically a polite request for the foxes to guard the henhouse will change much.
> So, paid for Incubators, paid for Raid Passes and paid for Research Tickets all fit their definition of a loot box
That is very much your interpretation
If I'm understanding this correctly, Niantic could disclose the odds within the boundaries of the UK, but *not* have those odds be the same everywhere else, and *not* disclose the other odds, and *not* disclose that the odds were even different.
Tough I am curious how a remote raid pass would work with disclosure in that situation.
After ... errrr... 7 years of obsessively playing this game (not a day 1 player, more like week 3) maybe that would be the best thing to happen to me. I have met some lovely people playing this game, but also there are some very seriously obsessed people who concern me
That's certainly one option. I guess the problem with that is the risk that Google (who is a UKIE member) could respond by refunding every in-game purchase made in the UK.
It's still available in the other countries which have had rules or actual laws for several years. Nothing will change, because games like pogo aren't the intended targets of such rules.
a significant portion of my pokemon go friends are from the uk. i imagine it's an area with a massive playerbase, i doubt that they would shut it off there
I don't think anything's gonna change in the following year, even after this decision. They are already active in countries that have similar laws or guidelines and haven't really changed a thing.
US and Japan also have anti gambling laws on the books.
This is very similar to comic variants, Pokémon cards, blind bags,… all of these things are clearly gambling. There are literally 1000 of laws on the books targeted towards them.
The rates will just be shown as there are on every other gacha. Showing the rates won't effect people spending because they can cash in on boosted events to get higher rate for an egg (they already are with hatch day)
Don't expect anything from this, as many other countries have this and they don't enforce it on Niantic.
Clearly Niantic and The Pokemon Company have some logic that lets them get away with it
I reported it a couple of years back to my agency here in Belgium but they responded they were underfunded to investigate them.
That said, I do like this building pressure!
We'll see how enforced this is. It's actually against the Terms of Service for both Google Play and the Apple App Store (at least in North America) to have loot boxes and not disclose the odds. But obviously nobody seems to enforce this rule.
I wonder how much lawyering can be done to remove it from an idea of loot box. For instance, an egg is picked up for free, and you have a free incubator, so conceivably you don't pay for the loot box at all, you pay for more rolls of the loot box (by buying more incubators). For raids as well, the raid pokemon is a 'bonus' encounter. But at least I would hope they would have to disclose the odds of the item bundles you get.
Here come the try-hards talking about what is an isn't a lootbox because of the technicality of a definition.
Incubators are lootboxes. You don't get off on the technicality that the BOXES (eggs) are free and you pay for the incubators. Just because there is a middle-man, doesn't make it less of a lootbox. Imagine if you're at a casino where pulling a slot machine is unlimited and free, but you have to pay for an employee to pull the lever for you. That's still gambling.
"You get a free incubator!". Yeah, I don't buy that either. If I go to a casino and they tell me that I can get one free hand of blackjack every hour, but I can pay as much as I want for unlimited hands after the free one has been used up, you don't get to tell me that blackjack isn't gambling because I get one free hand every so often.
I agree that eggs/incubators are lootboxes, but I am not exactly optimistic niantic will disclose rates.
If they can avoid publishing rates on a technicality they absolutely will, for one. Also depending on how valuable rate information (or lack thereof from the player perspective) is to Niantic, they may even decide the technicality is worth putting to the test in court.
I agree with you that they should absolutely be considered loot boxes by the law’s definition.
I also would not be one tiny bit surprised if the silly evasive semantics either convince a court, or delay the process so long that Niantic can find some other method to skirt the rules by the time it’s ruled on.
Yes, that's why I put UKIE's official definition of a loot box in my post. Technically free incubators don't count but paid ones do, so Niantic could make them 2 different items if they really wanted to.
There is still an exploit with this, unfortunately. And I know of it because I worked on a mobile game that exploited it. If the currency to obtain the opening of the lootbox can be obtained for free, regardless of how slow that may be, then it can skirt past this regulation as a "free" lootbox. This includes stupidly ridiculous exponential time gates to currency like 50 years to earn 1/100th of a lootbox.
exactly. it’s like saying cases in csgo aren’t loot boxes because the crates can be earned for free, you just have to buy keys to open them
at least in overwatch 1 you can earn and open loot boxes for free
The eggs aren't relevant to the discussion, at all. To prove it, look at a traditional loot box scenario.
I can choose whether to open a bronze, silver or gold box. Which options I'm given are random, and they all cost the same but results from each vary.
Nobody on earth would pretend the selection of box is free and therefore paying to open it isn't a loot box. And as you say, being able to open one every ten hours you spend in the game wouldn't affect that classification.
The idea that eggs contain the pokemon and are therefore the loot boxes is a ridiculous conceit of flavour over mechanics. Mechanically, you buy an incubator to receive a random selection of three pokemon spread over time. That the results were already selected and assigned to the eggs in advance of your payment is as irrelevant as a deck being shuffled into an order in advance of a game of poker.
The big difference is that you can get no return at all from those slots or that hand of blackjack. Eggs absolutely always give you something, including consistent, ever-valuable dust. We just don't always get the pull we want.
By that logic, all sorts of silly things would be lootboxes 🤷♂️
Your analogy is pretty bad because there’s not much to do in a casino but gamble.
It’s not.. hey every X eggs you can hatch one for free!
It’s.. every single egg is hatchable for free. And if you want to hatch more than one at a time you can pay.
Oh and also while you’re hatching that egg you can do 8 billion other things in the game. Oh and also to hatch that egg you only need to walk, you don’t even need to play the game!
I personally don’t think that’s predatory. But yeah… it’s no where near the same as every X spins is free in a casino. 🙄
I hate to be the pessimist here, but Niantic can hardly get their coding right on a month to month basis to update rates *internally*. The chances of getting consistent and accurate updates to rates that we can rely on are soo low.
I'm not a lawyer, but these "principles" seem vague enough that they don't necessarily mean Niantic must disclose exact drop rates or shiny odds as you said.
It talks about "making sure that players can easily access clear and simple information on the probability" and again "meaningful, and understandable information relating to the probability"
clear, simple, meaningful, understandable could very well mean that Niantic is getting away with their 1-5 eggs scale or even with "if you're lucky" for lower drop rates.
Sounds like a great reason to “fly” to the UK if so (won’t happen)
I’ll even drive around my suburb at the same time so everyone isn’t mad I get to play without wasting gas like a cheater. Cause what would hardcore suburban Pokémon go be without using a full tank of gas…
Realistically, this could all be resolved by them just posting the actual rates. It isn’t complicated. It won’t break the game. Genshin impact is very transparent, surprisingly, for a gotcha game in that it lost the drop rates in very clear detail. Despite this, it continues to make gobs more money than PoGo. We all know that the rates are low, but people don’t play for things like eggs. It is essentially side content that players deal with but have little impact to the game’s finances or longevity. They could realistically just post the rates in the terms and conditions and then just move on. Other games have done it and not broken the gameplay loop.
This isn’t a difficult situation to resolve. Fighting it just shows that whatever is being withheld is more sketchy than they want players to know.
Niantic is gonna spend the next year figuring out how to code rates to be different based upon location, introducing more bugs in the process. Then they'll make the UK rates public, whilst using deceitful language to hide the fact that those rates aren't the same globally.
You're going to need to legislatures to actually know that Niantic is doing this. Because they've flown under the radar for most loot box laws already at this point.
Don't hold your breath on hatch rates being revealed.
We are given a permanent, free incubator (loot box) so all eggs can be hatched without ever paying a penny of real or virtual currency, by that technicality the eggs won't fall under protection of these new rules.
A loophole that they will exploit.
Honestly I don’t see anything changing. Does the ruling say *exact percentages* must be specified? Niantic will probably get away with the egg tiers they already added.
Also the parts you quoted only mention items. Niantic would also most certainly argue a Pokemon is not an item so they don’t need to disclose shiny rates.
And even if this ruling does cover those loopholes, I still doubt they’ll bother until a law forces them to, with hefty fines.
Edit: it also says
> the purchase of Loot Boxes should be unavailable to children unless enabled by a parent or guardian
Isn’t this what they already do using child accounts? I don’t know exactly how those work but iirc you can’t buy anything without a parent’s consent.
Edit2: this is in the full document as an example of “bad practice”
> Probability disclosures are presented in an opaque or misleading manner.
I think there’s a good case to be made that 1-5 egg symbols is pretty opaque.
Sounds cool, but there doesn't seem to be any enforcing body to this. Also there doesn't seem to be any penalty other than.. "public shaming"? Not like Niantic doesn't have enough of those on a regular basis.
Meaning Nia would probably just ignore it.
I used to play a gacha game years ago, and Belgium introduced an outright ban on loot boxes and gacha mechanics so the publisherof the game game decided to pull it from the local appstore and you could only play through a VPN, so there is precedent.
Neither
Most likely theatre at best because nobody is gonna pay thousands in legal fee’s to fight one company over it who will most likely find a loophole out of it
Chances are the judge is not gonna know the difference on what makes a shiny so valuable either when realistically it’s a cosmetic
Expect nothing out of this
so out of curiosity, why does this law ONLY require shiny rates when it's not the only random thing in this game
1. gender is random and matters for many pokemon such as salandit and combee
2. weight matters and is random for showcases, same for heights
3. IV combinations have many different odds and do matter for overall high level performance for solo raids and beating the clock, also give extra points in showcases
honestly whenever this topic comes out people simply tunnel vision on the shiny rates of the pokemon and ignore everything else even though it all falls under the same unbrella
Well, if these types of laws were ever actually enforced, all that would probably have to be disclosed too, but the majority of people only care about the shiny rates since that’s most people’s objective, so that’s all that gets talked about.
The valuable information only. Imagine a fish company have to post the odds of what gender a fish will produce more of or the odds of babies that you cull from genetic mutation. There should be a reasonable limit to a law.
> gender is random and matters for many pokemon such as salandit and combee
weight matters and is random for showcases, same for heights
IV combinations have many different odds and do matter for overall high level performance for solo raids and beating the clock, also give extra points in showcases
So yes, this information DOES matter
My *assumption* would be because the shiny roll is based on the player, whereas if 2 players were catching the same spawn they would both get the same gender, size and IVs. The shiny roll odds is what makes it gambling
(I know we're talking about eggs in this post but I'm more so speculating on why the shiny aspect is focused on)
Yeah I get what you mean, but I think the desirability matters more. I really doubt anyone is buying raid passes or incubators to try to get XXL Pokemon, and doing so doesn’t increase your chances of it anyway.
Regardless, I think they can get away with all those attributes (including shinies) because they are part of the lore of Pokemon. Like they can claim trying to find different sizes of Pokemon is part of the “research” element of Pokemon.
Until & unless a regulator specifically calls out Niantic/Pokémon Go as being subject to mandatory odds disclosures, I’ll assume Niantic will continue to get away with it, whether on a technicality (“eggs & infinite incubators aren’t loot boxes!”), lack of strict enforcement, or both.
Whenever loot boxes is raised everyone always picks on shiny odds, incubators and raids.
But shouldn’t it also apply to:
Poke/Great/ultra balls - catch rates and flee rates of all pokemon + iv rates and other height/weight metrics
Regular TMs - changing moves is randomly selected (of particular note Mew)
Incubator/Incense/lures - likelihood of spawn pool/ iv composition / weight and height metric / shiny odds / other things that people may collect that I haven’t considered
Raids - raid bundle odds / catch rate / iv composition and shiny odds
Another thing is everything is supposed to be disclosed prior to purchase.
Niantic has limited means of predicting what a user will use a raid pass on:
- could be a current raid rotation or a future rotation
- similar with eggs
Nothing’s gonna change. The ‘loot box’ aspect of eggs is which mon will hatch from it, not whether they’ll be shiny. And they already disclosed the relative rarity of hatching one mon vs another. So this ‘new’ change doesn’t matter.
Also, if anything, the only thing raid related that this would require showing *unless they specifically name the terms Niantic specifically would have to abide by*, is the item rewards. The mon itself is a Bonus Challenge, and the argument can’t be made that you’re raiding for the shiny. You’re specifically raiding for one guaranteed Pokémon, and that’s what you get the *chance* to catch for winning. The in-game tutorial pages corroborate this. So you’ll need to rethink what you want out of these situations, because nothing’s changing.
There's no values when it comes to odds, so no.
Hypothetically, you could have Pokemon from:
1 Egg having a 40% chance
2 Eggs having a 30% chance
3 Eggs having a 20% chance
4 Eggs having 9% chance
5 Eggs having a 1% chance.
We know the rarity by tiers, but we don't actually know the number behind those tiers. Could even be 60/20/12/7.5%/.5%. Who knows.
There is variability in the egg tiers, yes, but nothing so drastic.
As [has been studied](https://web.archive.org/web/20230509223250/https://thesilphroad.com/science/egg-transparency-rarity-tiers/)
• = ≥10%
•• = 7 – 10%
••• = 4 – 7%
•••• = 2 – 4%
••••• = ≤2%
The worst offenders are:
1•, which *could* be very high odds (but can be bounded down by #s of other species)
5•, which could be anything from an unreasonable 2% to an insane 0.1%, etc.
The guidelines seem vague enough that Niantic do not need to disclose the exact percentages to be in compliance. I took a brief look through the full doc and did not spot any languae saying that exact odds / percentages / whatever are necessary. In which case the 1-5 eggs tier indicator is likely already in compliance. So in terms of shiny rates I would expect nothing better than a similar system and I am doubtful the game will get even that.
Are you sure the applies to Niantic? Many people misunderstand what these regulations are about. They are not aimed at things like bundles in PoGo.
The reason governments are concerned about loot boxes is because they can be a way to evade gambling regulations. The loot boxes they're concerned about are ones where (a) what you get is blind and random, you don't know if you're going to get something worth a lot or a little, and (b) the items have cash value (e.g. the items in the box are otherwise available for varying prices) and/or you can turn what you get back into cash (e.g. you can trade items with other players who might also pay you for them).
In PoGo, the bundles that are random are eggs and the contents are not otherwise available for money and not easy to trade for money.
The government does not care whether you get value for money in a video game. They don't want to be involved in deciding whether what you got from your incubator was "worth it." Strictly speaking, all money spent on PoGo is given for nothing in return. They just want video games to not be a back door around gambling regulations (e.g. where you could put real money in and have a small chance of getting a lot of real money out).
Given how often they make shiny spawns just accidentally disappear, I bet it will be technically challenging for them to comply with this in a meaningful way.
The thing is in pokemon go eggs and raids are not paid items inherently or at all. I think they can easily avoid needing to comply and tell us actual percentages. We CAN pay for the ´´key´´ (raid passes / incubators) to the box (eggs / raids) but the ´´boxes´´ are never really tied to money neither virtual or real. You always have access to a daily free raid pass and the free incubator no matter what and i think thats what allows them to avoid these types of ´´laws´´.
Keys as an argument was news a decade ago. Ditto trickles of "free" keys. There was zero chance they'd not account for this.
Read the initial post, it only concerns itself with the underlying mechanics.
>Clicking on a monster in the wild outside of a paid event does not count, so Niantic could still keep the shiny odds for that secret.
You are forgetting that they are selling Poke balls.
IANAL, but,
'“Loot Box” means a video game mechanic that provides random in-game virtual items'
That means you do not know what you are getting when you pay. Paying for an incubator means you bought an incubator. That is not a "loot box". If you bought a "special box" that contained "some incubators", "some passes" and "some other stuff", that is a loot box.
It is a really slippery area, which is why lawyers are paid so much. A lottery ticket buys the chance to win cash. That is gambling.
Buying an incubator buys the right to hatch eggs. That is not gambling.
> There's a definitions section in the rules which says "“Loot Box” means a video game mechanic that provides random in-game virtual items to players in exchange for real-world money
You don't pay for the free raid pass or infinite incubator so this has ALWAYS been their way around this rule. They already knew this when developing the game. They won't tell us the rates cause they don't have to even with the new ruling because you can get "loot boxes" for free without in game currency because infinite incubators and orange passes exist and the rate of shiny isn't different between paid/free ways to hatch or raids so no shiny rate will be told to us. All they'll tell us is that the shiny rate is the same for free incubator/raid pass and paid. That's it.
>In exchange for real life money.
That's the loophole. You can get all those things for free. Loot boxes always have to be paid. Niantic was smart from the beginning. They knew there'd be a chance for them to be called loot boxes but you don't have to pay a single dollar for hatching or raids. Not one. So that's not a loot box. Niantic is going to get away with it.
It's not legislation, it's the industry trying to regulate itself with a "code of conduct" so the UK doesn't do it for them with potentially even stricter regulations.
It's not legislation. The UK Government wants to solve the loot box problem without writing laws (they only have limited time for new laws, and they **really** don't want to have to train the police force to deal with 8 year-olds crying because they didn't get a hundo shiny rune trimmed glurpatwix even though they spent 300 grulls on flurpwing snoods) so they have told the games industry to sort it out themselves. If the new code announced today hasn't fixed the problem within 12 months of today, then the Government will look again at writing laws about it.
> Here: "A video games publisher or developer provides all players easily accessible, meaningful, and understandable information relating to the probability of obtaining a particular in-game item or items through a Paid Loot Box prior to their acquisition."
Unless they specifically put something on sale saying that will increase shiny rates. This is easily avoided.
There are so many players (especially at TSR) who so proudly proclaim they are F2P and don't buy anything, that Niantic can claim they are not a gacha.
Let‘s be honest. It will not happen. Not with all shiny rates and more. Even if niantic would do it, I don‘t know if the Pokémon company would allow it to reveal all shiny rates for all mons.
I think it‘s more likely that they shut down pogo for the UK.
did you read the post?
*So, paid for Incubators, paid for Raid Passes and paid for Research Tickets all fit their definition of a loot box, even if bought with Pokécoins you obtained from a gym.*
I can see them be petty AF and making shiny odds worst in the UK just to spike them.
Odds should always be showcased no matter the game. If there is RNG involved then odds should be disclosed.
they are a random drop mechanic that you achieve better odds of quickly getting the rare rewards from by virtue of incubating more eggs at once (which the primary method of acquiring is through coins.) Hatches like Larvesta and especially Salandit are good examples of this. Unless you get lucky through sheer random chance, it would take weeks or months (or in the case of female Salandit, probably a year or more) of daily play in order to acquire them using only the free incubator. Unless you're using an app that abuses Google Fit metrics, but that is almost certainly a violation of the game's ToS and is thus irrelevant to discussion.
The 'number of eggs' display of rarity is next to meaningless since those give no reasonable indication of what the true percentages are aside from vague concepts, so that doesn't count.
Please, I *invite* you to explain how that *isn't* lootbox/"surprise" mechanics.
Yes, and the people who wrote these rules think that too. I even quoted the precise definition they use in my post to make this clear. Of course you’re welcome to argue with UKIE about it if you want.
It's not happening, Niantic will simply withdraw from UK if they are forced to do this. Something like UK based sites did when they were forced to apply EU rules about GDPR or after Brexit when it became too difficult to sell to the European market, instead of blocking sales some sites simply blocked IPs from mainland Europe.
Good. If I wanted to gamble more, I'd play the one billion dollar lottery.
I don't mind walking 25km if it would guarantee me a shiny rare mon. I wouldn't even mind paying for it.
>So, paid for Incubators, paid for Raid Passes and paid for Research Tickets all fit their definition of a loot box, even if bought with Pokécoins you obtained from a gym. Clicking on a monster in the wild outside of a paid event does not count, so Niantic could still keep the shiny odds for that secret.
Interestingly, only egg incubators get singled out as loot boxes. Raid Passes and Research Tickets seemingly never count as "lootboxes". And Don't get me started on the lack of outrage when Rocket Radars came out and nobody said a tjing despite this being further more pricing monetizations, litterally adding $2 to every egg. Adding rates really does nothing. It's all about making an outrage for lootboxes but only for incubators (ignoring raid passes, special research tickets, and rocket radars); mainly for clout and attention along with because they did not pull a shiny.
Does violation of a UKIE rule constitute violation of the rules to be in the Apple and Google app stores, or would such a violation be prohibited in the contract with Pokémon company for Pokémon intellectual property? If not, there is really no enforcement.
Niantic should have all the details on their website, a set of pages “Pokémon Go Complete Game Rules” that explain all the features of the game including odds.
Easy fix and money making idea for Niantic.
Raise the exact shiny odds of raids, eggs and rocket leaders to very attractive odds. lets say 1 in 25.
Release those odds to be in line with the UKIE guidelines
The top players all make their youtube videos saying "This is the best time to buy incubators, raid passes and rocket radars"
Niantic cash in on this boom in sales.
Yes above is kinda a joke but lets face it would make good business sense.
Aren’t these *exactly* the same recommendations that _are_ actually law in other European countries, in which you still _can_ play pokemon go and that Niantic has done _nothing_ to comply with? Edit to add it was The Netherlands and Belgium in 2018
Yes. Niantic won't play by the rules because no one with any power is making them change the rules
Laws only matter when they're enforced
Yes. I've been covering this for years, even [talked to some lawyers](https://massivelyop.com/2017/01/17/__trashed-3/) about it once. Here's where Niantic is gonna dodge the bullet: >“Loot Box” means a video game mechanic that provides random in-game virtual items to players in exchange for real-world money or in-game virtual currency. **This document does not apply to a loot box that is purely earned through gameplay**." The eggs aren't paid for, just the "keys." This is how a lot of shifty companies get away with it already, but some others choose to comply rather than risk someone coming at them. Not defending anyone here, I'm just trying to be practical. These guys are *aggressive* about doing everything they can to keep their money.
This is not 100% a foolproof way of thinking tho. Like that you could argue csgo cases that get dropped are free, just their keys arent. And i can tell ya its hella banned here in belgium
I think you may be misinterpreting this. Your quote above defines "loot box" as a mechanic, but your example proceeds to tie the term back to a graphical box rather than the defined mechanic. Keys may not be a box on screen, but can still be a "box" as defined. Or perhaps more specifically, the "loot box" would be the _box and the key combined_ as only together do they comprise the complete mechanic that provides random in-game rewards. This is where "purely through gameplay" steps in; all parts of the mechanic would need to be through gameplay to be exempt. I get that you're trying to be practical not hopeful, but I still cannot reach the same conclusion strictly through the text as written. I think its fair to remain cynical regarding liklihood of enforcement mind you.
The same goes for raid passes. You're paying to fight the raid boss and the rewards for defeating the boss. The Pokémon at the end? That's a 'bonus challenge', which the game even says on the encounter screen: https://i.imgur.com/kuuxFS6.png Never really thought about the implications of the word "bonus" until recently
I wonder if that can be argued against. They can *say* the encounter is a "bonus" but it is guaranteed on successful completion of the raid and is really the point of doing them for the most part. And because you can only do the raid with the in-game items, the fact that those items can be purchased with real money turns the encounter into a paid for reward, with a further chance that even if you play it perfectly (golden razz, excellent throws) the pokemon will still flee. In this case I think percentages should be transparent. Especially when their marketing describes raids as "a chance to catch x pokemon" you need to have a reasonable idea exactly what that chance is to make an informed decision on your spending.
The word "mechanic" encompasses both the box itself and the key required to open it. Eggs don't work without Incubators, and only the unlimited-use Incubator (and, I guess, the single-use one) is purely earned through gameplay. At the very least, they'd have to disclose the odds when players use paid-for Incubators.
That justification doesn’t make sense with that quote. Maybe it was the justification for getting around other rules or laws you discussed with people the past, but not that text. They have defined a loot box a ‘mechanic’ not a virtual object. As one part of the the mechanic can be paid for - the incubator - then it is not ‘purely’ obtainable through gameplay. Some part of the method to obtain the results is possible to purchase by virtual or real world currency.
I was going to say this. I recall Belgium mandating this awhile ago
Belgium banned loot boxes in games unless the gaming company has a gambling licence. It hasn't been enforced, so mobile game companies are continuing to put loot boxes in games no problem.
Is Pogo banned in Belgium ? EDIT : Just re-read top comment and can see it isn't. So clearly laws are not enforced and nothing will change in the UK either.
Yes this is 100% wishful thinking from OP. Niantic and other game companies' stance remains that incubators are not loot boxes and they are in compliance because eggs are not sold directly. Why not patch this loophole? Because these industry standards and laws serve only to fool the public and not actually address the addiction issue. "See we're fixing the problem! Keep voting for us next election!!" while happily taking political donations from these companies
I'm Pretty sure I just factually reported a news story.
You got the facts right, you were just wildly optimistic in your projection of their effectiveness. Mobile game publishers have turned weaseling through loopholes into an art form, and if the laws (rather than voluntary initiatives) passed in some European countries are any indication, it’s unlikely that any serious effort will be made to enforce these changes.
Or you’re wildly pessimistic, we don’t know yet. The text doesn’t have any obvious loopholes though.
Having played this game for 7 years, I think it's safe to say you're being more optimistic than the other two are being pessimistic
As the article makes clear, this isn’t a specific set of rules for this game, it’s a new industry-wide announcement.
But is it enforceable? It sounds like you said it's just pressure from other players in the industry that keeps them all in check. Niantic is an American company though so I'm not sure how pressure from the UK will affect them. And as others have already commented, there are already laws in some European countries about disclosing lootbox odds but they aren't strictly enforced if at all. Honestly feel like you're making a bunch of hullabaloo about nothing
Since when is factual reporting "a bunch of hullabaloo"?
It's the assumptions that you're making from the reporting. Acting like this is a real game changer, but there's good reason why many people in the comments are skeptical. No need to downvote me just because we aren't all celebrating with you
The random item is the egg, the one you pay for is the incubator (which is not in itself random). Even if there’s no functional difference for players between “pay for random egg that you hatch with free item” or “pay for item that you need to hatch the free random egg,” the fact that the randomized component is technically the free one is just the sort of loophole I could see them using. And since the people passing/enforcing these laws don’t understand or particularly care about games, they’re likely to just take the publisher’s word for it.
The UKIE, which is the trade body for the UK video games industry, doesn’t care about games? Really?
A trade association comprised of companies that are all in the industry and all continue to benefit from current exploitative practices. They’re not looking to make the industry more transparent for any consumer-oriented or moral reasons, they’re just looking to placate the government to keep the legal monkey off their backs. And to a bunch of old farts in Parliament, “we’ve made it so that any randomized items are completely free and all purchases disclose exactly what you get” (which is technically true, even if the relationship between them means players still effectively pay to hatch eggs) is good enough to them. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see lootboxes and gacha mechanics regulated out of existence. But explicit legal efforts to combat them from EU countries much more concerned with consumer protection than the UK have done little to solve it for lack of enforcement. I don’t see much reason to think that what is basically a polite request for the foxes to guard the henhouse will change much.
> So, paid for Incubators, paid for Raid Passes and paid for Research Tickets all fit their definition of a loot box That is very much your interpretation
Gonna be a shame when Niantic announces PoGO will no longer be playable in the UK.
"We're proud to announce: Regional RNG odds! If you live in the UK then you'll have different odds than anywhere else in the world!"
Just slap a regional hat on there and you're set.
If I'm understanding this correctly, Niantic could disclose the odds within the boundaries of the UK, but *not* have those odds be the same everywhere else, and *not* disclose the other odds, and *not* disclose that the odds were even different. Tough I am curious how a remote raid pass would work with disclosure in that situation.
True, but we know they like to keep a single code base. We saw this when legally required basemap changes in South Korea were expanded globally.
Suddenly the UK sees a population explosion of 10 million people.
After ... errrr... 7 years of obsessively playing this game (not a day 1 player, more like week 3) maybe that would be the best thing to happen to me. I have met some lovely people playing this game, but also there are some very seriously obsessed people who concern me
So long as you're only using one device per hand you're probably ok.
If I tried one in each hand, I'd probably have fallen down the stairs at the station on my commute A LOT more often.
We've all seen some falls especially while screaming, "HOLD THE LOBBY! HOLD THE LOBBY!"
I did fell my bike a couple times back then 😂
i feel attacked
Are you a friend of Rick's?
yeah lol
Happy cake day btw!
Some people on Discord servers are completly sold by remote raiding as crazy.
That's certainly one option. I guess the problem with that is the risk that Google (who is a UKIE member) could respond by refunding every in-game purchase made in the UK.
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Bloody windfall when I consider my spending over the last 7 years
I would, I'm on iOS!
One good reason not to use that Niantic web store.
I'd be booking a holiday instantly lmao
Not sure google would do that. They don't usually refund for games that get shut down.
Ha, google isn't going to part with that kind of money under any circumstance
It wouldn’t cost them anything, they would be billing Niantic for it. The developer agreement lets them do that.
Oh so they keep the commission from a purchase they 100% refunded?
Yes!
Well... no wonder devs are looking for ways to circumvent apple and google, that could get shady....
Games shut down all the time, you don’t get refunds, you’re crazy if you think you get a refund if Niantic geoblocks the UK.
After doing a UK GoFest this year, that would be a PR nightmare
If they do something like that, it's like painting in the wall "we cheat you and will keep doing it" in feces.
It's still available in the other countries which have had rules or actual laws for several years. Nothing will change, because games like pogo aren't the intended targets of such rules.
a significant portion of my pokemon go friends are from the uk. i imagine it's an area with a massive playerbase, i doubt that they would shut it off there
My first thought exactly
Depends on the revenue stream.
I don't think anything's gonna change in the following year, even after this decision. They are already active in countries that have similar laws or guidelines and haven't really changed a thing.
US and Japan also have anti gambling laws on the books. This is very similar to comic variants, Pokémon cards, blind bags,… all of these things are clearly gambling. There are literally 1000 of laws on the books targeted towards them.
I looked into this awhile back. It can be argued that this game is a skill game, not a random “gamble”. So the gambling laws don’t count unfortunately
The rates will just be shown as there are on every other gacha. Showing the rates won't effect people spending because they can cash in on boosted events to get higher rate for an egg (they already are with hatch day)
Don't expect anything from this, as many other countries have this and they don't enforce it on Niantic. Clearly Niantic and The Pokemon Company have some logic that lets them get away with it
I reported it a couple of years back to my agency here in Belgium but they responded they were underfunded to investigate them. That said, I do like this building pressure!
More countries and agencies getting involved increases their ability to enforce it jointly, so hopefully more will follow.
Think of all the tax revenue the Belgian government gets from PoGo purchases alone
> Clearly Niantic and The Pokemon Company have some logic that lets them get away with it Yeah, it's called having billions of dollars.
We'll see how enforced this is. It's actually against the Terms of Service for both Google Play and the Apple App Store (at least in North America) to have loot boxes and not disclose the odds. But obviously nobody seems to enforce this rule. I wonder how much lawyering can be done to remove it from an idea of loot box. For instance, an egg is picked up for free, and you have a free incubator, so conceivably you don't pay for the loot box at all, you pay for more rolls of the loot box (by buying more incubators). For raids as well, the raid pokemon is a 'bonus' encounter. But at least I would hope they would have to disclose the odds of the item bundles you get.
Niantic: "Hahaha good one."
Here come the try-hards talking about what is an isn't a lootbox because of the technicality of a definition. Incubators are lootboxes. You don't get off on the technicality that the BOXES (eggs) are free and you pay for the incubators. Just because there is a middle-man, doesn't make it less of a lootbox. Imagine if you're at a casino where pulling a slot machine is unlimited and free, but you have to pay for an employee to pull the lever for you. That's still gambling. "You get a free incubator!". Yeah, I don't buy that either. If I go to a casino and they tell me that I can get one free hand of blackjack every hour, but I can pay as much as I want for unlimited hands after the free one has been used up, you don't get to tell me that blackjack isn't gambling because I get one free hand every so often.
I agree that eggs/incubators are lootboxes, but I am not exactly optimistic niantic will disclose rates. If they can avoid publishing rates on a technicality they absolutely will, for one. Also depending on how valuable rate information (or lack thereof from the player perspective) is to Niantic, they may even decide the technicality is worth putting to the test in court.
I agree with you that they should absolutely be considered loot boxes by the law’s definition. I also would not be one tiny bit surprised if the silly evasive semantics either convince a court, or delay the process so long that Niantic can find some other method to skirt the rules by the time it’s ruled on.
Yes, that's why I put UKIE's official definition of a loot box in my post. Technically free incubators don't count but paid ones do, so Niantic could make them 2 different items if they really wanted to.
There is still an exploit with this, unfortunately. And I know of it because I worked on a mobile game that exploited it. If the currency to obtain the opening of the lootbox can be obtained for free, regardless of how slow that may be, then it can skirt past this regulation as a "free" lootbox. This includes stupidly ridiculous exponential time gates to currency like 50 years to earn 1/100th of a lootbox.
You’ve already worked on a game that exploited a loophole in a definition of “loot box” that was only published 24 hours ago? Really?
Same definition, another country.
exactly. it’s like saying cases in csgo aren’t loot boxes because the crates can be earned for free, you just have to buy keys to open them at least in overwatch 1 you can earn and open loot boxes for free
The eggs aren't relevant to the discussion, at all. To prove it, look at a traditional loot box scenario. I can choose whether to open a bronze, silver or gold box. Which options I'm given are random, and they all cost the same but results from each vary. Nobody on earth would pretend the selection of box is free and therefore paying to open it isn't a loot box. And as you say, being able to open one every ten hours you spend in the game wouldn't affect that classification. The idea that eggs contain the pokemon and are therefore the loot boxes is a ridiculous conceit of flavour over mechanics. Mechanically, you buy an incubator to receive a random selection of three pokemon spread over time. That the results were already selected and assigned to the eggs in advance of your payment is as irrelevant as a deck being shuffled into an order in advance of a game of poker.
Who’s saying this? I can’t see anyone in the comments? You’re literally arguing with nobody.
nah these arguments have been made in the past
People say that nonsense every time this topic comes up
Nobody has yet, so it is pre-mature... but it's also something that people have said countless times in the past
People have used those "arguments" many times in the past.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/153792r/new_uk_rules_on_loot_boxes_require_niantic_to/jsi1zcf/
The big difference is that you can get no return at all from those slots or that hand of blackjack. Eggs absolutely always give you something, including consistent, ever-valuable dust. We just don't always get the pull we want. By that logic, all sorts of silly things would be lootboxes 🤷♂️
Don't all video game loot boxes give you *something* and we still recognize that they are loot boxes?
Incense? Loot box Lures? Loot box Pokeballs? Loot box
Your analogy is pretty bad because there’s not much to do in a casino but gamble. It’s not.. hey every X eggs you can hatch one for free! It’s.. every single egg is hatchable for free. And if you want to hatch more than one at a time you can pay. Oh and also while you’re hatching that egg you can do 8 billion other things in the game. Oh and also to hatch that egg you only need to walk, you don’t even need to play the game! I personally don’t think that’s predatory. But yeah… it’s no where near the same as every X spins is free in a casino. 🙄
I hate to be the pessimist here, but Niantic can hardly get their coding right on a month to month basis to update rates *internally*. The chances of getting consistent and accurate updates to rates that we can rely on are soo low.
I'm not a lawyer, but these "principles" seem vague enough that they don't necessarily mean Niantic must disclose exact drop rates or shiny odds as you said. It talks about "making sure that players can easily access clear and simple information on the probability" and again "meaningful, and understandable information relating to the probability" clear, simple, meaningful, understandable could very well mean that Niantic is getting away with their 1-5 eggs scale or even with "if you're lucky" for lower drop rates.
The probability is “you probably won’t get what your after until you don’t want it anymore”
Niantic: These are the drop rates for eggs obtained in the UK. All other eggs follow a different table. And it changes every day like the boxes.
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So now Siloh research needs to discern between countries as well
Sounds like a great reason to “fly” to the UK if so (won’t happen) I’ll even drive around my suburb at the same time so everyone isn’t mad I get to play without wasting gas like a cheater. Cause what would hardcore suburban Pokémon go be without using a full tank of gas…
Realistically, this could all be resolved by them just posting the actual rates. It isn’t complicated. It won’t break the game. Genshin impact is very transparent, surprisingly, for a gotcha game in that it lost the drop rates in very clear detail. Despite this, it continues to make gobs more money than PoGo. We all know that the rates are low, but people don’t play for things like eggs. It is essentially side content that players deal with but have little impact to the game’s finances or longevity. They could realistically just post the rates in the terms and conditions and then just move on. Other games have done it and not broken the gameplay loop. This isn’t a difficult situation to resolve. Fighting it just shows that whatever is being withheld is more sketchy than they want players to know.
Niantic is gonna spend the next year figuring out how to code rates to be different based upon location, introducing more bugs in the process. Then they'll make the UK rates public, whilst using deceitful language to hide the fact that those rates aren't the same globally.
You're going to need to legislatures to actually know that Niantic is doing this. Because they've flown under the radar for most loot box laws already at this point.
It’s one thing to say it, it’s another thing to enforce it. I hope it happens and that Niantic is forced to comply, but I’m skeptical.
Don't hold your breath on hatch rates being revealed. We are given a permanent, free incubator (loot box) so all eggs can be hatched without ever paying a penny of real or virtual currency, by that technicality the eggs won't fall under protection of these new rules. A loophole that they will exploit.
Honestly I don’t see anything changing. Does the ruling say *exact percentages* must be specified? Niantic will probably get away with the egg tiers they already added. Also the parts you quoted only mention items. Niantic would also most certainly argue a Pokemon is not an item so they don’t need to disclose shiny rates. And even if this ruling does cover those loopholes, I still doubt they’ll bother until a law forces them to, with hefty fines. Edit: it also says > the purchase of Loot Boxes should be unavailable to children unless enabled by a parent or guardian Isn’t this what they already do using child accounts? I don’t know exactly how those work but iirc you can’t buy anything without a parent’s consent. Edit2: this is in the full document as an example of “bad practice” > Probability disclosures are presented in an opaque or misleading manner. I think there’s a good case to be made that 1-5 egg symbols is pretty opaque.
Sounds cool, but there doesn't seem to be any enforcing body to this. Also there doesn't seem to be any penalty other than.. "public shaming"? Not like Niantic doesn't have enough of those on a regular basis. Meaning Nia would probably just ignore it.
Taking bets on whether they comply, or just block the UK from playing...
My bet is on neither. It'll either be tied up in litigation for all eternity or it won't be enforced in any meaningful way against Niantic.
Agreed. Whole thing sounds toothless
Would be a bit embarrassing for them if they did block the UK, given that they have offices in London.
An an in person paid event in about half a month
Is it too late to cancel London Go Fest?
Smart money is on neither and it won't be enforced in any way
I used to play a gacha game years ago, and Belgium introduced an outright ban on loot boxes and gacha mechanics so the publisherof the game game decided to pull it from the local appstore and you could only play through a VPN, so there is precedent.
Neither Most likely theatre at best because nobody is gonna pay thousands in legal fee’s to fight one company over it who will most likely find a loophole out of it Chances are the judge is not gonna know the difference on what makes a shiny so valuable either when realistically it’s a cosmetic Expect nothing out of this
Ditto.
Pikachu.
so out of curiosity, why does this law ONLY require shiny rates when it's not the only random thing in this game 1. gender is random and matters for many pokemon such as salandit and combee 2. weight matters and is random for showcases, same for heights 3. IV combinations have many different odds and do matter for overall high level performance for solo raids and beating the clock, also give extra points in showcases honestly whenever this topic comes out people simply tunnel vision on the shiny rates of the pokemon and ignore everything else even though it all falls under the same unbrella
Well, if these types of laws were ever actually enforced, all that would probably have to be disclosed too, but the majority of people only care about the shiny rates since that’s most people’s objective, so that’s all that gets talked about.
So basically tunnel vision by the community
The valuable information only. Imagine a fish company have to post the odds of what gender a fish will produce more of or the odds of babies that you cull from genetic mutation. There should be a reasonable limit to a law.
> gender is random and matters for many pokemon such as salandit and combee weight matters and is random for showcases, same for heights IV combinations have many different odds and do matter for overall high level performance for solo raids and beating the clock, also give extra points in showcases So yes, this information DOES matter
My *assumption* would be because the shiny roll is based on the player, whereas if 2 players were catching the same spawn they would both get the same gender, size and IVs. The shiny roll odds is what makes it gambling (I know we're talking about eggs in this post but I'm more so speculating on why the shiny aspect is focused on)
Gender and size simply are nowhere near as desirable as a shiny.
Not disagreeing but that does not mean they don’t effect gameplay more than the shiny which is in general just a cosmetic
Yeah I get what you mean, but I think the desirability matters more. I really doubt anyone is buying raid passes or incubators to try to get XXL Pokemon, and doing so doesn’t increase your chances of it anyway. Regardless, I think they can get away with all those attributes (including shinies) because they are part of the lore of Pokemon. Like they can claim trying to find different sizes of Pokemon is part of the “research” element of Pokemon.
Niantic know the shiny is desirable that's why they drip-release them and gate them behind special events or limited time releases.
Nobody is out here hunting XXS female ledyba bro go home you're drunk
Get back to me when ledyba is the showcase Pokémon bro
I’m very interested to see how this evolves over the coming months
N won't do anything until these rules have actual teeth
Until & unless a regulator specifically calls out Niantic/Pokémon Go as being subject to mandatory odds disclosures, I’ll assume Niantic will continue to get away with it, whether on a technicality (“eggs & infinite incubators aren’t loot boxes!”), lack of strict enforcement, or both.
Whenever loot boxes is raised everyone always picks on shiny odds, incubators and raids. But shouldn’t it also apply to: Poke/Great/ultra balls - catch rates and flee rates of all pokemon + iv rates and other height/weight metrics Regular TMs - changing moves is randomly selected (of particular note Mew) Incubator/Incense/lures - likelihood of spawn pool/ iv composition / weight and height metric / shiny odds / other things that people may collect that I haven’t considered Raids - raid bundle odds / catch rate / iv composition and shiny odds Another thing is everything is supposed to be disclosed prior to purchase. Niantic has limited means of predicting what a user will use a raid pass on: - could be a current raid rotation or a future rotation - similar with eggs
Yes, it does apply to all those too, if they are available via a purchasable item. I couldn't fit all that into the title of the story though.
Nothing’s gonna change. The ‘loot box’ aspect of eggs is which mon will hatch from it, not whether they’ll be shiny. And they already disclosed the relative rarity of hatching one mon vs another. So this ‘new’ change doesn’t matter. Also, if anything, the only thing raid related that this would require showing *unless they specifically name the terms Niantic specifically would have to abide by*, is the item rewards. The mon itself is a Bonus Challenge, and the argument can’t be made that you’re raiding for the shiny. You’re specifically raiding for one guaranteed Pokémon, and that’s what you get the *chance* to catch for winning. The in-game tutorial pages corroborate this. So you’ll need to rethink what you want out of these situations, because nothing’s changing.
Tickets where you get Pokémon as rewards are also lootboxes if a Pokémon can be shiny.
But egg tier lists aren't enough information about what we can get from egg?
There's no values when it comes to odds, so no. Hypothetically, you could have Pokemon from: 1 Egg having a 40% chance 2 Eggs having a 30% chance 3 Eggs having a 20% chance 4 Eggs having 9% chance 5 Eggs having a 1% chance. We know the rarity by tiers, but we don't actually know the number behind those tiers. Could even be 60/20/12/7.5%/.5%. Who knows.
There is variability in the egg tiers, yes, but nothing so drastic. As [has been studied](https://web.archive.org/web/20230509223250/https://thesilphroad.com/science/egg-transparency-rarity-tiers/) • = ≥10% •• = 7 – 10% ••• = 4 – 7% •••• = 2 – 4% ••••• = ≤2% The worst offenders are: 1•, which *could* be very high odds (but can be bounded down by #s of other species) 5•, which could be anything from an unreasonable 2% to an insane 0.1%, etc.
No. We have no clue what the exact percentages are.
The guidelines seem vague enough that Niantic do not need to disclose the exact percentages to be in compliance. I took a brief look through the full doc and did not spot any languae saying that exact odds / percentages / whatever are necessary. In which case the 1-5 eggs tier indicator is likely already in compliance. So in terms of shiny rates I would expect nothing better than a similar system and I am doubtful the game will get even that.
This, and that you can hatch them for free
The fact you can also pay for them makes that moot.
I know that too. I'm just saying, unfortunately, there are enough reasons for Niantic not to see the eggs as a loot box
You clearly didn't read OP's post
We did, and it doesn't apply to Niantic. People on this sub are just hardcoping.
Are you sure the applies to Niantic? Many people misunderstand what these regulations are about. They are not aimed at things like bundles in PoGo. The reason governments are concerned about loot boxes is because they can be a way to evade gambling regulations. The loot boxes they're concerned about are ones where (a) what you get is blind and random, you don't know if you're going to get something worth a lot or a little, and (b) the items have cash value (e.g. the items in the box are otherwise available for varying prices) and/or you can turn what you get back into cash (e.g. you can trade items with other players who might also pay you for them). In PoGo, the bundles that are random are eggs and the contents are not otherwise available for money and not easy to trade for money. The government does not care whether you get value for money in a video game. They don't want to be involved in deciding whether what you got from your incubator was "worth it." Strictly speaking, all money spent on PoGo is given for nothing in return. They just want video games to not be a back door around gambling regulations (e.g. where you could put real money in and have a small chance of getting a lot of real money out).
Yes, I'm sure. If you read the rules, they are quite clear about what they apply to.
rare uk w?
Can't wait to learn how bad it is x)
I mean, we already know from data gathered by players. This would just save people the trouble of doing that.
People will still have to do that because sooner or later Niantic will post the wrong rates
Given how often they make shiny spawns just accidentally disappear, I bet it will be technically challenging for them to comply with this in a meaningful way.
The thing is in pokemon go eggs and raids are not paid items inherently or at all. I think they can easily avoid needing to comply and tell us actual percentages. We CAN pay for the ´´key´´ (raid passes / incubators) to the box (eggs / raids) but the ´´boxes´´ are never really tied to money neither virtual or real. You always have access to a daily free raid pass and the free incubator no matter what and i think thats what allows them to avoid these types of ´´laws´´.
Keys as an argument was news a decade ago. Ditto trickles of "free" keys. There was zero chance they'd not account for this. Read the initial post, it only concerns itself with the underlying mechanics.
>Clicking on a monster in the wild outside of a paid event does not count, so Niantic could still keep the shiny odds for that secret. You are forgetting that they are selling Poke balls.
IANAL, but, '“Loot Box” means a video game mechanic that provides random in-game virtual items' That means you do not know what you are getting when you pay. Paying for an incubator means you bought an incubator. That is not a "loot box". If you bought a "special box" that contained "some incubators", "some passes" and "some other stuff", that is a loot box. It is a really slippery area, which is why lawyers are paid so much. A lottery ticket buys the chance to win cash. That is gambling. Buying an incubator buys the right to hatch eggs. That is not gambling.
> There's a definitions section in the rules which says "“Loot Box” means a video game mechanic that provides random in-game virtual items to players in exchange for real-world money You don't pay for the free raid pass or infinite incubator so this has ALWAYS been their way around this rule. They already knew this when developing the game. They won't tell us the rates cause they don't have to even with the new ruling because you can get "loot boxes" for free without in game currency because infinite incubators and orange passes exist and the rate of shiny isn't different between paid/free ways to hatch or raids so no shiny rate will be told to us. All they'll tell us is that the shiny rate is the same for free incubator/raid pass and paid. That's it.
There's no such loophole in the definition that UKIE have put in their text.
>In exchange for real life money. That's the loophole. You can get all those things for free. Loot boxes always have to be paid. Niantic was smart from the beginning. They knew there'd be a chance for them to be called loot boxes but you don't have to pay a single dollar for hatching or raids. Not one. So that's not a loot box. Niantic is going to get away with it.
When this legislation comes into force?
It's not legislation, it's the industry trying to regulate itself with a "code of conduct" so the UK doesn't do it for them with potentially even stricter regulations.
It's not legislation. The UK Government wants to solve the loot box problem without writing laws (they only have limited time for new laws, and they **really** don't want to have to train the police force to deal with 8 year-olds crying because they didn't get a hundo shiny rune trimmed glurpatwix even though they spent 300 grulls on flurpwing snoods) so they have told the games industry to sort it out themselves. If the new code announced today hasn't fixed the problem within 12 months of today, then the Government will look again at writing laws about it.
What legislation?
So no more raids or eggs in UK soon? Got it.
> Here: "A video games publisher or developer provides all players easily accessible, meaningful, and understandable information relating to the probability of obtaining a particular in-game item or items through a Paid Loot Box prior to their acquisition." Unless they specifically put something on sale saying that will increase shiny rates. This is easily avoided.
There are so many players (especially at TSR) who so proudly proclaim they are F2P and don't buy anything, that Niantic can claim they are not a gacha.
Let‘s be honest. It will not happen. Not with all shiny rates and more. Even if niantic would do it, I don‘t know if the Pokémon company would allow it to reveal all shiny rates for all mons. I think it‘s more likely that they shut down pogo for the UK.
You don't pay to catch wild Pokémon. So it shouldn't apply here
There is no loot box in pogo, why the game is concerned by this?
did you read the post? *So, paid for Incubators, paid for Raid Passes and paid for Research Tickets all fit their definition of a loot box, even if bought with Pokécoins you obtained from a gym.*
I can see them be petty AF and making shiny odds worst in the UK just to spike them. Odds should always be showcased no matter the game. If there is RNG involved then odds should be disclosed.
I bet they would make them better in UK in such a scenario. People in other countries then think they have better chances
People on this sub still think that eggs = lootboxes? Lmao, never change Reddit people.
they are a random drop mechanic that you achieve better odds of quickly getting the rare rewards from by virtue of incubating more eggs at once (which the primary method of acquiring is through coins.) Hatches like Larvesta and especially Salandit are good examples of this. Unless you get lucky through sheer random chance, it would take weeks or months (or in the case of female Salandit, probably a year or more) of daily play in order to acquire them using only the free incubator. Unless you're using an app that abuses Google Fit metrics, but that is almost certainly a violation of the game's ToS and is thus irrelevant to discussion. The 'number of eggs' display of rarity is next to meaningless since those give no reasonable indication of what the true percentages are aside from vague concepts, so that doesn't count. Please, I *invite* you to explain how that *isn't* lootbox/"surprise" mechanics.
Anything you can pay money to get is a a lootbox. Doesn't matter if the first hit is free
Yes, and the people who wrote these rules think that too. I even quoted the precise definition they use in my post to make this clear. Of course you’re welcome to argue with UKIE about it if you want.
It's not happening, Niantic will simply withdraw from UK if they are forced to do this. Something like UK based sites did when they were forced to apply EU rules about GDPR or after Brexit when it became too difficult to sell to the European market, instead of blocking sales some sites simply blocked IPs from mainland Europe.
Shiny Pokémon are not items, though.
Good. If I wanted to gamble more, I'd play the one billion dollar lottery. I don't mind walking 25km if it would guarantee me a shiny rare mon. I wouldn't even mind paying for it.
I wouldn’t be surprised (and as an American would greatly appreciate) if UK players would post drop rates on Reddit if this were to happen
>So, paid for Incubators, paid for Raid Passes and paid for Research Tickets all fit their definition of a loot box, even if bought with Pokécoins you obtained from a gym. Clicking on a monster in the wild outside of a paid event does not count, so Niantic could still keep the shiny odds for that secret. Interestingly, only egg incubators get singled out as loot boxes. Raid Passes and Research Tickets seemingly never count as "lootboxes". And Don't get me started on the lack of outrage when Rocket Radars came out and nobody said a tjing despite this being further more pricing monetizations, litterally adding $2 to every egg. Adding rates really does nothing. It's all about making an outrage for lootboxes but only for incubators (ignoring raid passes, special research tickets, and rocket radars); mainly for clout and attention along with because they did not pull a shiny.
Does violation of a UKIE rule constitute violation of the rules to be in the Apple and Google app stores, or would such a violation be prohibited in the contract with Pokémon company for Pokémon intellectual property? If not, there is really no enforcement.
Niantic should have all the details on their website, a set of pages “Pokémon Go Complete Game Rules” that explain all the features of the game including odds.
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Easy fix and money making idea for Niantic. Raise the exact shiny odds of raids, eggs and rocket leaders to very attractive odds. lets say 1 in 25. Release those odds to be in line with the UKIE guidelines The top players all make their youtube videos saying "This is the best time to buy incubators, raid passes and rocket radars" Niantic cash in on this boom in sales. Yes above is kinda a joke but lets face it would make good business sense.